Basic permeability concepts related to wick debinding in metal injection moulding

Wick debinding is influenced most by the permeability of the compact and/or wick material and capillary pressure of the binder in metal injection moul ding. An apparatus is designed to measure the permeability and capillary pr essure of the simulated porous samples (compact and/or wick) simultaneously , Experimental results show that the penetrating depth squared depends line arly on time as the porosity of the compact/wick is constant. A newly numer ical method, called body fitted FEM, is used to simulate the debinding proc ess. The numerical predictions of total wick debinding time versus compact thickness squared agrees well with the present experimental results and tho se issued theoretically by German. Furthermore, a correlation among the cap illary force and other parameters is proposed by Buckingham pi theorem to i nvestigate the relative influence of the parameters.